"These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."


Two considerations only can throw any light on the dark mystery of
suffering, the problem which has baffled the intellect, the perplexity
which has torn the heart of mankind from the dawn of conscious life--"I
believe that Jesus Christ was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin
Mary, and was made man"; "I believe in the life of the world to come."

The two thoughts blend in our text with a harmony of illumination which,
though it does not solve the problem, renders it less dark.

Only in the light of another world, where the seed sown here shall bear
wondrous fruit, can we even begin to reconcile the existence of
suffering with the goodness of Almighty God. If there be no hereafter,
then indeed suffering must be the work of a vengeful tyrant rejoicing in
cruelty, or of a fatalistic machine grinding out its foreordained
consequences.

What we require is some comprehensive plan which will knit together
past, present, future in one great purpose of progress towards ultimate
perfection, which will guarantee not only _an_ existence hereafter,
but will render that existence personal, conscious, capable of the
highest development.

We find this in the Incarnation, the eternal purpose of God the Father,
formed in the eternity of _the past_, that His Son should take our
human flesh.